Compulsion thus transported to forget
by Britomartis
Summary: What hither brought us, hate, not love, nor hope. Of Paradise for Hell, hope here to taste. Of pleasure, but all pleasure to destroy, Save what is in destroying, other joy. Life is not easy when you did not wish to live it. Esme/Carlisle.
1. Chapter 1

It Takes Time.

**Story that started off as a one shot and just grew. I always had an issue with Esme's portrayal as 'just' a loving wife and mother. I wanted to explore a little more where she might be coming from.**

Esme folded the sheets together, inhaling the scent of lemon that surrounded them. The fabric detergent change has been a sensible one she concluded. She picked up the remaining pile and placed them back inside the cupboard. Whilst they had never been used, few stayed with the Cullens, it was best to be prepared.

She smiled softly to herself as she looked around the guest room. It was perfect, comfortable, it's pale yellow bedspread and curtains giving the room a calming presence.

Her children gently mocked her incessant need to have the house prepared for humans, she knew. She also was aware of the impossibility of any living, breathing houseguests. She loved her family far too dearly to put them in that kind of discomfort for long.

But still… she wanted to be prepared. It was an occupation in a home where it was hard to be occupied. Though they would argue otherwise, she knew, the others did not need mothering. When you are never cold, tired or hormonal you hardly needed a shoulder to cry on she had concluded. It hurt.

Sometimes, when she was especially low she wondered why, if there was a God, as her husband believed, he would have created beings that didn't need each other to survive. Certainly it was preferable, for conversation, company and sex but, not necessary. They were not like humans, fragile and breakable.

She wondered if her family thought like this, she suspected they did not. She suspected they felt it though, the individualism that caused them to clasp each other ever closer. Why they grasped at their partners with consuming lust and lost themselves for days.

Carlisle would have known it, she concluded, having spent so much time on his own, before Edward. In her heart of hearts she still doubted his motives for changing him. Perhaps he felt that if he had a companion he was more human. It seemed strange for someone, who held such confidence in an afterlife to feel the need to 'save' someone. Edward understood this beyond the others, she saw. Perhaps it was the mind reading, the way he knew peoples desires, their fears. Even hers.

To love someone truly was to put their desires above your own. To submit to their wishes, forgetting the cost. She felt this in her bones as she held her family together, coping with tempers and hurt feelings. If this preserved their humanity, it was no bad thing.

None of them save Carlisle and Edward, of course, knew what she had been before. She doubted any of them would have imagined it, their loving foster mother, racked with pain at what she had become, looking for answers wherever she could.

It took time to form, to create the character she wanted to be, the person she would become.

The wife, the mother, she became them.

She became a vampire before she was a Cullen.

That was her story.

**I am considering continuing into a semi long fic if people would be interested in reading it. Please Review and let me know.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Since I wrote the one shot I have continually been writing. I have a plan and a amazing leading lady.**

**This is the first chapter- please do let me know what you think.**

1912- Esme Anne Platt

"You can't do it Esme, I told you!"

I gritted my teeth and pull myself up the next branch. Below me I could see the worried face of my pseudo friend and next door neighbour Sophie. Not do it? …

Of courseI was able to!

The old apple tree at the back of the garden had long been my nemesis. My brothers, five years older, had spent most summers, when they were home from school, taunting me from the top of it. At 4, 6 and 8 I had waited at the bottom, crying for them to come down. To the best of my memory, I don't think they ever did.

When finally, two years ago, they had moved away, one to the army, the other to a hastily arranged marriage, I had abandoned my attempts to climb the tree.

Much to the relief of my mother, I might add, who viewed any physical exertion of mine as detriment to marriage possibilities.

Still, an afternoon visit to an aging aunt had removed my parents utterly from the vicinity of the house and I, in a fit of childishness, decided to attempt for a final time, to climb to the top.

On reflection it was a stupid thing to do. I was dressed completely inappropriately, in clothes that reflected my 'budding womanhood'. Whilst the pretty blue dress usually pleased my appearance-conscious 16 year old self, it **was **frightfully annoying for scaling the upper branches of the tree.

Sophie, my unwilling accomplice, was placed at the bottom to witness my triumphal ascent. She, of course, would have been much happier instead, talking of the love note that Bobby Smithson had given her after church on Sunday, but that was no matter.

I knew I was close as the ground seemed further and further away. The mist, that seemed to perpetually linger around the town was making it tricky to see above me. It was unsurprising therefore that, as I reached out, to grasp the next branch I lurched forward, misjudging my weight. Gasping slightly, I steadied myself and turned to lean back against the trunk of the tree.

That was a mistake.

My shoe caught as I turned and pitched forward, not so gracefully. I vaguely heard Sophie yelp as I fell, backwards, out of the tree.

The next thing I remember is walking up in my bedroom with a pair of startlingly coloured eyes gazing down at me.

I remembered what had happened in the tree swiftly after that. The crushing pain in my left leg also served as a reminder. Unable to help myself, I took in a sharp, painful breath.

"It is broken."

A lilting baritone stated and I became aware that the astonishing eyes had a person attached to them.

Wow.

Even if I hadn't attended St John the Baptist's Parish Church my whole life I am sure I would have recognised an angel. I am certain my entire face went red, my jaw dropped and everything in me screamed. Of course I didn't scream out loud. I was my mother's daughter after all.

I hope to this day that he took my excessive staring for a pain reaction. But, this…being…was…astonishing

He was tall, medium build, not muscled like the farm workers, though somehow it seemed almost as if he had been painted. But it was his face that took me in. Well sculpted jaw, blonde hair tied back, as was the fashion and eyes that gazed at me as if I was the only thing that mattered in the world.

I hadn't seen much of the world from my small town in Ohio and most of the boys I met at dances I had known since I was 3, but I was certain that the man I met that day was the most handsome there was.

Of course this moment of Elysian bliss was short lived. My mother, gathering that I had awakened entered with all the grace of a whirlwind. Whilst she nodded civilly at the man/angel, who I surmised was a doctor; her eyes told me that I was in a lot of trouble.

The man/angel/thing continued,

"It was a clean break; you should heal up no time."

His voice was tinged with an accent that I did not recognise, though, given I had never left the State, this was unsurprising.

"Thank you Doctor Cullen."

My mother simpered, in a manner far younger than her age. I shifted uncomfortably, attempted to alleviate the source of pain. The 'Doctor' or angel moved forward swiftly to aid me. Briefly, though I, in a fit of girlish romanticism may have imagined this, our hands touched. If this did occur I recall removing my hand quickly for whilst it was as cold as ice, it burned as a flame.

In recollection I am certain it was a fit of girlish imagination as the 'Doctor' spoke as if nothing had occurred.

"Well, I am pleased you are awake, Miss Esme, I shall leave something for the pain."

He seemed to swallow slightly, as if uncomfortable. Frankly, if my mother had been pulling that expression, anyone would have felt the same.

He left shortly afterwards.

His gaze, though I held it for a fraction of a second remained with me throughout my two month recovery.

He left our town soon after, too good for Ohio, my father concluded. He took with him his brother, a student I had not encountered.

His visit however stayed with me, through everything that happened after it.

Sometimes, though grasped tight within my then new husband's arms, I would awake from a dream where a burning gaze would hold mine.

And a voice would tell me I mattered.

………………………………………………….

1919- Esme Anne Evenson

"I am very sorry Mrs Evenson."

I knew before the Doctor returned. I knew the moment I arrived at the hospital, the darkness of their expressions.

They had murmured at the scars on my breasts, my hips, though as professional they had focused on their task.

I knew the moment my son stopped moving within me that he was lost.

Whilst rushing to hospital, aching, I had prayed.

"Suffer little children unto me." The scripture taught. Though, God in his infinite wisdom had not saved him. We were taught this in church, God's plan. His capacity for good within evil.

Though, I often wondered. What did he say to the wives that have been fucked and beaten by their husbands until they couldn't remember their own names?

The memory of leaving the hospital is dumb to me. All is gray. I recall holding my son. A struggle. A coffin, as small as a shoebox.

And pain. I cannot recall when it was not there.

I had loved my son. Loved him as I had loved no one else. Unconditional, the Bible taught. Christ's love for us. Perhaps I couldn't imagine it as I had not known it.

Until, I felt the quickening in my womb, another heartbeat. It didn't matter that he was part Charles. He was mine.

And now he was with God. The God who Ididn't understand.

I remember standing on the edge. The thought 'Suicide' had not enter my mind. I had never had so much control. The idea of being able to take my own life did not seem possible. I was waiting for one of them, my husband or my mother. They would grab at me, pull me back, and place me in another dollhouse

So whilst I stood at the edge of that cliff, still in my hospital robes, I did not think of death.

I just wanted it to end, the bright gray of my life. I wanted to not look in the mirror and see Charles wife. I didn't want him at the 'head' of me.

I wanted to be with my baby, my son, the only person who would love me without expectation.

So I leapt towards him.

……………………..

I don't know how people are meant to fell when they jump off cliffs. From what I have read in medical journals, they linger in our house, it is unclear.

I do know however, that a fisherman saw my translucent white frame swoop from the cliff top. He was the one who raised the alarm.

After, all was blackness.

I do not recall a tunnel, or a white light, a voice or the Virgin.

I do not recall anything. But I believe I knew. I knew I was dying.

………………………….

Until I didn't. Then all I felt was pain. From the tips of my toes to the top of my head I burned.

Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. I, naively thought this part of death. Perhaps it should have been. I sometimes wish it was.

There were voices I believe, I did not know them then. Movement sometimes too. My mind had given up.

Years later it seemed, the pain dulled, simmered and stopped.

Did I know I was alive? Not yet. But still, I was aware of my hands, my face, my eyes.

And then… And then. Another pair of eyes, black and hungry, staring down at me.

…………

**Please do review- it is helpful.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 2. **

**Couldn't help myself updating so soon. Updates will normally be weekly not this frequently. I just wanted to get into the flow of the story.**

**AN: The way the story is structured causes it to move between both times and First and Third person POV. Hopefully it is not too confusing to follow. **

**Disclaimer- I own nothing. **

1933 Rochester-

The screaming was beginning to wear on her, Esme decided. She stroked the hair on the girls' forehead gently, moving quickly away as she tried to nip at her hands.

Outside she could hear the voices of her husband and her son, locked in a heated debate.

"Rosalie Hale!."

Edward's voice hissed in exasperation. Esme heard her husband sigh softly. She could imagine him outside the door, eyes focused in compassion upon his son.

"What would you have done Edward?"

Esme stilled, attentive to Edward's response. There was none. She wondered if he was listening to her thoughts. She attempted to calm them. These were the moments when she hated that he could read her so easily.

The girl sobbed, rocking herself in agony. Esme gazed down at her. She didn't imagine that it would be long now. Rosalie's skin had already begun to take on a paler tone and many of the injuries that had littered her body had disappeared.

The bed she was laid on was covered in blood, long dried and no longer the temptation it had been. Beyond that the room, containing both a small kitchen and sitting area was dimly lit by the lamps, hastily lit several hours ago. The house was not what Esme would have preferred but it was as far out into the woods as she could find at short notice. She hoped it would be far enough. The remnants of what was hastily collected from their last house littered the floor . She would have liked to rearrange their belongings into a semblance of order, a small welcome, but the opportunity had not yet arisen. There was no piano here, she noted sadly.

The dull thumping of Rosalie's heart that had been Esme's main companion through the previous days began to sound out of time. As Esme turned her attention to it, she noticed that the girl's screams had begun to quieten to whimpers. A small part of her hoped that this was not part of the process.

Esme turned as the door to the sitting room opened and her husband entered. He wouldn't meet her eyes as he walked over to the bed and glanced down at the girl.

"How long?"

She asked, glancing at him in concern. Edward had not returned.

"Ten minutes at most, the transformation is almost over."

He looked tired, which of course she knew he couldn't be, physically. A slamming door reminded her of Edward's disapproval. From the moment Carlisle had carried Miss Rosalie Hale, bleeding, into their house Edward had been brewing with badly concealed rage.

"Where has he gone?" She asked, worried. The idea of Edward leaving again made her heart ache. Though, she conceded they had a right to be angry.

"Out, he will return when it begins. He cares for your safely more than he hates my judgement."

He looked ashamed, she realised. As if he was waiting for the blow to come from her. She hadn't questioned him so far, not when he had come rushing in from the practise, Rosalie clasped in his arms. She had just done what was needed. The pain of the girl had provided a welcome distraction to any unwanted thoughts.

She wondered if Rosalie could hear them, what she was thinking, what she would think of them. She prayed she would be peaceful,

The danger she could prove to them if she was unnecessarily angered after her transformation frightened Esme. The idea of anyone hurting Carlisle caused venom to rise in her throat. Still, when she was lying out, vulnerable, on the table, she pitied her.

She could tell what had happened to her the moment Carlisle laid her on the floor of their house. That what was what made the Love burst unrepentantly forth from her towards the girl. She understood what it felt like. Part of her wanted to leave right then, to seek out the perpetrators and feed.

He husband however was suffering without her. Moving over to him she laid a hand on his arm and rested her head against his shoulder.

"Edward will not be angry for long."

Carlisle sighed and wrapped his arm around her slender waist.

"I would not be so sure."

She had long realised that the conversations Edward held with people ran far deeper than he could help them, due to his gift. It pained her how hard found it to trust others, how often he would denounce people as liars before they could even open their mouths. If she hadn't known she would have called him a cynic. As it was, it merely saddened her at the state of the world, she found herself in, which Edward must see clearly. His anger towards her husband, she knew, was more than his action in biting Rosalie. Edward always looked at the motives behind. She had a suspicion what this one was.

She did not think she wanted to know the motivation behind this decision. She imagined Carlisle knew this. He knew her better than anyone. She turned and smiled, a little sadly at him. A conversation held years ago flickered into her mind but she pushed it aside.

"It is done now."

Carlisle kissed her forehead and they turned together to listen to the girls heartbeat slow.

Five minutes later Edward returned. One look into his eyes told Esme all she needed to know. She had seen that expression before. In response to her thoughts he smiled, grimly, at her before turning and addressing his foster father.

"If you intend to change everyone you encounter dying please do tell me, I would be delighted to explain why it is a foolish idea. Moral reprehensible too"

"Edward…I didn't intend…"

Carlisle interjected. Edward, ignoring him, continued.

"And any intentions you have towards my future I would kind ask you to keep to yourself. I am not interested in women who have spent more time, on their hair in the morning than they have in a lifetimes reading."

He paused before continuing, a disgusted expression on his face. Esme sighed inwardly. He looked so small somehow, so very alone.

"And Rosalie Hale. Her vanity sickens me."

As if on cue Rosalie's eyes snapped open. Within a second, she had removed herself from the table and edged into a corner.

"What am I doing here?"

Her bell-like voice rang out into the room. She seemed not to have registered her advanced speed. Esme thought she saw a glimmer of fear in the girls eyes before a haughty expression crossed it. She ached in sympathy for her.

"Where is Royce?"

Carlisle approached her, humanly slowly. His eyes were filled with the compassion that she loved so well. Esme knew then that he cared deeply for her.

"Do you remember what has happened to you Miss Hale?"

Esme thought at that moment the girl resembled a feral, though beautiful, animal more than a human. The thirst had taken her. She was therefore unsurprised when the girl launched herself at her husband.

It took them several days to feed Miss Hale to the point that she was capable of interaction. She fed with a hunger that scared Esme.

Edward stayed away from her as much as was possible and Esme found that she spent most of her time in the company of the girl who was embittered by her son's rejection. Oddly she found that Rosalie didn't seem heartbroken so much as annoyed.

It was hunting one day; in the depth of the forest at the heart of New York State that Rosalie finally caught a glance of her own reflection. She spent most of the rest of the afternoon gazing at herself, transfixed.

Esme had been forced to send Edward up the mountain twice to keep him from making spiteful comments.

It was that day, when Esme watched the joy of the girls reaction to her appearance that she truly saw her vulnerability, how broken she was. That was when she decided to love her, to take her as her daughter.

It took several weeks for Rosalie to remember what had happened to her and several after that to seek vengeance.

Though she didn't approve of her methods, part of Esme would always be envious of the steps Rosalie took to seek revenge. As, through her hatred of her attackers, Rosalie had embraced her new nature in a way that Esme never would again.

Still, she was the one who held the girl when, the realisation of what she had become and the loneliness became too much for her.

………………………………………………………………..

1919- Esme Anne Evenson

I can hear a cricket was the first thought that struck me when I woke. This may seem strange but, I had never imagined that there would be insects in heaven. Of course, I wasn't going to heaven after what I had done, I reminded myself. Hell I was certain would contain all kinds of many legged beings.

The eyes were still upon me. This displeased me. Some much so that, with a loud bang I heard whoever possess them be flung across the room. I couldn't have done this? I had hardly moved?

Somehow however I was sitting up. I took in the surroundings. I was in a barn, I guessed, from the piles of hay gathered around me. The scent of the hay was overpowering, fresh and clean. It seemed to be daytime I gathered from the sun streaming in from the top of the hayloft. In all, it wasn't an entirely unpleasant place to be.

Then I noticed the burn in my throat. It was the thirstiest I had ever felt and made me want to drink. I gasped.

Must drink… Somewhere, near it must have been I could smell something delicious. I turned and began to head in that direction. With a loud thud I crashed to the floor, encased, in what seemed to be two stone clamps.

After a seconds pause I became aware that the clamps were talking to each other.

"She needs to feed now or she will become harder to handle."

"She is difficult enough as it is Carlisle." The second retorted. "Did you not see her throw me across the room?"

Whilst they interacted I began to try and edge my way over towards the delicious smell. After a few struggles I sensed I was held fast.

"Esme, I know this may seem frightening, but we can dull the pain."

The first voice knew my name. This was peculiar. It seemed familiar to me too, like waking from a dream that you cannot quite remember. I tried to place it but the burn in my throat made thinking difficult. My brain seemed to be jumping from one thing to another without stopping to inform me where it was heading.

"How do you…name?"

I muttered, distracted halfway through by the stream of light bouncing off of the walls. My voice sounded unfamiliar to me, clearer and more fluid. In fact I could not be certain that I had spoken at all. My eyes seemed clearer than before as if they had been wiped clean. It was as if I was not in my own body.

Strange.

I was so taken over by these ponderings that I hardly registered that the voice had replied.

"We've met. Once, years ago. You wouldn't remember."

For the first time I turned to my left and saw what was holding my arm.

Of course it was Doctor Cullen. To me then, it was as if I had not seen him properly before. Ever imagining in the years that past of his face could not describe its hues and tones. I felt as if I could see him clearly for the first time. Why he was here, with me, in a barn, did not cross my mind at this point. I could hardly think at all let alone in a logical manner.

And the scent of him was overwhelming. Fresh, though tinged with a hint of Cedar. For a millisecond the burn in my throat seemed dulled.

That sadly was short lived.

I cannot explain how I pulled myself up and ran- full pelt first at, then through the door. I could sense that someone was beside me but I didn't register what or rather , who until it ran into me, pushing me right until I was forced me to change direction away from the delicious smell.

I remember a field of cows. Then a field of dead cows. The taste was unpleasant, dissatisfying, though the burn seemed to lessen slightly. I'd never killed anything before. I used to cry when my father went out to collect a chicken for a family meal. But this, this was easy. It was just as if I had taken a knife or fork and set about at a supper party.

It was as I had surmised earlier, daytime. Cloudy though, the field smelled like rain. It seemed as if a storm had just passed. I glanced quickly around me. Behind me to the left I could the barn I had vacated. A large person shaped house had appeared in the side which, to my horror, I realised I was creator of. Beyond the barn however I could see nothing for miles. I could see for miles I realised, far further that I had ever seen before. In the trees that surrounded the field I could see birds in their nests. I could even count the eggs in the nests I realised. It seemed like morning, though of what day I had no idea.

Once I had finished my examination of the area, my thoughts seemed a little clearer. What I had done, the speed I had run, the damage I had amassed, began to see less and less natural. I was almost certain then that I was not dead. I could see, smell and taste. I noticed that the person who had followed me was standing besides me.

He looked young, twenty at the eldest. He had the strangest bronze coloured hair and skin as pale as the Doctor. His eyes though, which had seemed so black had changed colour. They were amber, unlike anything I had ever seen before. He was also incredibly handsome. This I noticed straight away.

He was also gazing at me with intense loathing. A soft footfall behind me indicated that Doctor Cullen had also followed me here. I turned to him. He at least was a little familiar to me, nothing else in the area did I recognise.

"Am I dead?"

My voice rang out, louder and fuller than I had heard it before. It startled me. The answer to my question seemed heavy, pressing in on me.

The last thing I remember was jumping off of a 100 foot cliff. To then wake, to face someone I had fantasised about since I was 16 seemed almost a heavenly possibility. I was prepared to ignore the destruction of the cows and the violence this could be the next life. Which would mean…

"Where is my son?"

Suddenly, guiltily I remembered him. The way he moved within me, the pain, the stopping, the hospital. If he was here…

Doctor Cullen's eyes widened in sympathy as he moved, a step towards me.

"Esme, your son is dead. You are not."

It returned then. The grief, as heavy a lead weight thumped onto my chest. It seemed to have enlarged, sharpened as a knife. I had not reached him. I was not dead.

"Then where am I?"

I gasped, my arms involuntarily wrapping themselves around me. He tried to step forwards towards me, an arm outstretched. No man must touch me. As he loomed I ran backwards. I crashed into the fence post behind, and through it. Looking down in shock, I saw that I had crushed the wood into dust.

"What am I?"

The man seeing my distress kept his distance. He spoke softly but clearly in measured tones.

"You nearly died from your fall. I took you from the hospital and changed you. You would have died."

I had not fulfilled my plans. Or rather, I had not been allowed to do so. I could have been with my son but for the man in front of me. What I was, or was not was little matter. I was not where I wanted to be. I wanted to be nowhere. I couldn't do this, couldn't be any longer.

It didn't matter that he was the man of my memory. He had stopped me from dying. He had taken that away. He had not asked.

Anger flared in me, stronger than anything I had felt before. I crouched down, ready to spring at him. A growl, fierce, unlike any noise I had ever made, tore from my lips.

"And what, " I spat at him. "Gave you the right to stop that from happening?"

The other man stopped me before I could reach his throat.

………………………………..

**Esme's first person is a little jumpy I know. But to be fair she has just been through hell and her mind isn't' going to move in the most predictable ways.**

**Please do review and let me know what you think. Feedback is very, very helpful to me.**


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